The rules:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
2. Write a post to show your award.
3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.
4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
5. Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
6. Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How did I start my blog?

I’d been thinking about starting a blog for a looooong time when one day, I won a Short Story contest and the jury asked me for a short bio and the link to my website if I had one.

I was like, of course I have a website!

And I spent the entire night building this blog.

I was travelling through Europe at that time, so I started posting about the places I visited, and then I shared a few of my writing, and at one point I realized the reading community was so awesome I wanted in. And I started posting reviews about my favourite books and just like that audreywritesabroad was a part of my life.

2 pieces of advice for new bloggers:

Have a few backup posts. It’s going to happen, maybe after a month, maybe after a year of blogging, but it’s going to happen. One day, life and work and school and everything will be too much and you won’t find the time or the motivation to blog. These backup posts will come in really handy until you catch up with everything, otherwise you’ll go several weeks without a single post and after that it’s hard to ”get back in the game” haha.

Don’t be afraid to share more. I don’t mean more posts, I mean more personal stuff. It’s hard to believe it sometimes, but your readers actually want to know who you are! Want to make sure you’re human. For example, in the Writing page of my blog, I usually post short stories. Pure fiction. But the one time I dared post a free-writing piece I wrote when I wasn’t feeling particularly chirpy, I got a ton of really encouraging comments that made me feel so much better.

Anyway.

I’ll just end by saying that I’m so glad winning that contest gave me the kick I needed to start blogging, otherwise I might never have found the courage to enter this community, and between you and I, isn’t it the best?

Thanks so much for reaching out and including me in this! 💛 This post seems like a lot of fun to do, and I definitely need to connect with more bloggers in this amazing community. I also really love your tips!